coyabean
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Posts posted by coyabean
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Dude(ette)!!! You've got a killer opening statement buried in there.
Your research interests are informed by your experiences in Russia during the fall of the Iron Curtain...PERIOD! Right there I get that you are a global citizen, can bring something unique to the department, and probably have some languages under your belt.
That second draft is better but I think your opening should begin and end with the above idea.
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LOL
My mentor did the same thing. I think there isn't much to say when something is effective. Are they supposed to go line-by-line with "great verb" and "ooooohh! snap! you sold that theorist!" and "excellent semicolon usage"? Not that I wouldn't mind hearing those things but it just isn't natural.
Take it as a compliment. -
No, they meant exactly that. Even if I won a 25K award, they would adjust their own award (probably the tuition fee?) to even out things.. I'd end up with the 20.5 regardless of what award I win (unless its some graduate teaching award or something like that). This was one of the many reasons I chose not to attend NU.
I'm indignant on your behalf! That's crazy. It smells like a hustle to me.
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under the 'language' tab, you can choose to leave out common english words
is that how you guys got all the pretty colors, too? so envious.
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Coyabean, the open tabs and folders in your screen shot are telling!
This is a cool idea, I'm going to do one when I get to my own computer.
LOL They are, huh?
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I'll be 23 if I get in and from where I come from (Europe) that's considered old.
I graduated high school in France in 2005 and most of my high school friends are either Masters' graduates with jobs or going into their Phds, although most are definitly more into joining the work force in their respective fields.. Anyway, my point being that "maturity" as such 1)- has little to do with a person's actual age, and more with the invornment they're in, 2)- plays a much smaller part in a scholar's or specialist's research activities or employability than the skills and motivation acquired as part of their previous studies.
To give you an example, one of my good friends is 22, has a degree in media studies and is a junior attachée communication with one of the biggest press agencies in France. Or, better yet, another friend who, at 23, has just opened her osteopathology practice adjascent to her dance studio. She's also already divorced, which although hardly an accomplishment, often intimates that she possesses that elusive "maturity" people keep harping on about...
What an interesting cultural commentary. I cannot imagine being 22 with that level of accomplishment, but I was a loser.
Also as one who has been divorced let me just say that it is the most expensive maturation you can get.
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Ooooohh, this sounds interesting!!!! I'm getting wind power and geography in racialized communities in the South?
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I, too, have to knock out three requirements by no fault of my own. My degree audit was done incorrectly the first time. So, I'll be doing a stats class -- should be useful, actually -- french composition which I understand is a french lit course, astronomy, chaucer and a poetry workshop.
Shouldn't be too bad. Except for French. I haven't taken it in 10 years! Fortunately my BFF is fluent and I've dabbled in it here and there. *sigh* I'm most excited about my job in the grad admissions office. I miss money.
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On that OTHER board someone posted a link to creating wordles (http://www.wordle.net/). Being obsessed with all things applications it's an awesome time-waster, er, visual representation of your SOP. Can be interesting to see if you communicated what you meant to communicate.
Mine:
Yours?
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As I see it, the best way to "come across as honest" is to "be honest."
Yep.
If you really haven't thought about the issues you present in your SOP I think that's where the urge to BS comes from. But if you have then being direct and honest is not only easier, but more compelling. And not just the SOP. Everything I have ever written follows this rule. If I am not clear about my intention, my audience and my motivations when I write? You'll know it. LOL It'll be crap with a nice spit polish of pretense in hopes of distracting you. I think that's the real thing that adcomms mean by a "bad" SOP -- one where its clear that the person is using pretentious language, quotes, stories, etc. to hide the fact that they are confused or ill-prepared. If you're neither of those things then honesty is both the best policy and the best writing convention.
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Oh NO!!! LOL This is awesome. THIS is what i need while waiting. It's horrible and small and petty but this makes me feel like I'm still in the game. May all of them be this bad or only slightly better.
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You know, it could be me, but I really went for simple -- though learned -- and pleasant. I had this debate with others during the process. I hate pretense. So, even though I can surely BE pretentious I just felt like the adcomms would be swamped by that and it was best to be realistic and honest. And I hoped I sounded like someone they would want to meet in person since that's basically what I'm interviewing for.
Once I decided that was the tone I wanted I actually went back to my drafts and just got as clean as I could, verbiage wise. Let's hope everyone else did this thing you bring up and I come off like a breath of fresh air!
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Wine. I also drank so much wine while studying for the GRE that I was tempted to drink a few glasses before I went to the test center, to more closely replicate my study/practice exam conditions.
I like the way you think! And drink.
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For me, I wouldn't say it's the intention, but it is the result. Very few of the ways the poorest are disadvantaged are because someone decided that economically disadvantaged people should be punished. But, the structures of our societies do act to create and perpetuate poverty, in ways that are within our control, limiting options available to some. Grad apps are no different.
Yes. I don't care about intent. Intent is actually quite irrelevant. If someone didn't INTEND to kill your dog do you mourn less? So, yeah, it's the way the process is acted out in reality that is my concern. In particular this bothers me because I am so deeply committed to the idea of what education can and does mean for people. Of all industries I feel like education should be the most transparent and accessible.
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You are such a social scientist (and I mean that in the very best way).
I'm actually rather honored.
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I'm looking for somewhere else to direct this energy. So far, nothing. I can't do my normal stuff - look for apartments, obsessively plan for my move, go shopping, redecorate -- because it all depends on where I am moving for school which brings me back to obsessing over getting accepted.
I need something though. I cannot afford a drinking habit -- in more ways than one.
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DO NOT READ AFTER HITTING SUBMIT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Again, I repeat, DO NOT READ AFTER HITTING SUBMIT!!!!
People tend to read what they know is meant rather than what is there. And I think it's reasonable to think a very minor typo can happen in this process. The horror stories we hear are, I think, mistake riddled sloppy SOPs and, presumably, you sent a clean, well-written SOP with a very minor slip-up. I think it's ok.
- cheesethunder and modernity
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I understand why they need to have application fees, but it seems a bit odd in applying for what is basically a job. I've never had to pay to apply for a job, seems a bit off for me to have to pay for this. Especially with all the hard mailing deadlines - postage here is usually reliable enough for personal letters, but I don't trust the basic service to get an important letter across in under a month. I just had to mail everything in very very far in advance, which meant that I lost weeks when I could have been improving my writing sample and SOP if I had more time to mail it in. Using a courier service to send a letter from the UK to the US costs £40 per letter if I remember correctly.
Well they are setting the power dynamic up from the start. Between this board and the earlier link to a discussion about costs and grad apps on a philosophy board I am beginning to think that it is all designed to remove any and all leverage that the applicant might have in the process. Restrict admissions, set up financial barriers, control all communication and shroud the process in secrecy -- it all unsettles the applicant, puts them on the defensive. Once off-balance it becomes easier to assume an authority position. The poor candidate is replaceable and expendable and they are afraid to challenge the authority, even after they are enrolled.
Or, I have too much time on my hands?
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Wish it was a nice cognac, a lambrusco or even a cordial but see earlier post about how much this process costs soooooo it's mostly beer, crown royal bummed from my roommate or plain ol' water.
I also like a nice mug of tea -- cream and sugar.
i was close to eating myself out of all versions of "fit" so i got back on my eating plan but some days its all i can do to not spend my gas money on a bottle of rum and a box of doughnuts.
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I had figured it awhile ago, but I don't remember what the exact number is
But I spent $50+ on GRE prep books. $225 on the test. I got a fee waiver the first time but then had to take it a second time. Add another $50 for the gas to get to Seattle once and Puyallup once, plus tickets for my family to see AstroBoy while I was taking the GRE and Denny's lunch for them. I asked my hubby to drive me the second time because I was such a mess of nerves.
My transcripts are probably about $200. Now I have to add in $20 for the Kinko's scanning fee. Which is funny because when I saw that Princeton wants unofficial transcripts, I thought that would actually save me some money.
And then there are the application fees.
I was thinking of going to law school. I applied for the fee waiver and got it. I got an awesome prep book for free. I could take the test twice for free,and there were a certain number of score reports for free. AND once a school saw I had a waiver, most automatically waived their application fee. So, the law school application process is more need blind than graduate school in sociology. hmmm
I did, too. I still keep my LSAC file up to date. I don't even want to go to school but I can't help but cringe at the differences.
And I go to all these talks about the "pipeline" issue with diversity in academe and no one ever discusses this! You take a student who hasn't had a paycheck in four years and a family who is struggling to help when and where they can and tell them, "oh. you can be an elite PhD after ten years of shit wages and only AFTER you pay the $1000+ entry fee and get acclimated to a culture so different from yours as to be foreign OR you can spend a couple hundred bucks, go to law school and three years later be in a position to take care of yourself and maybe even help your family."
Pipeline is looking more like the gulf of Mexico to me.
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I don't know...a prof from my program told me that in the adcom for admits to the American Lit part of the Lit phds, they make lists of ten who are about equal, and at some point they get to the middle list and just kind of....pick. As he kept reminding me as I hyperventilated through application season, the adcoms aren't losing any sleep over this. So if you don't get in anywhere, there's not necessarily anything you could have done better (or maybe there was a LOT you could have done better...who knows?). Aaaaaand now I'm depressing myself.
Beginning to feel like Elle Woods had the right idea. LOL
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Isn't there a fee reduction option? Half price? I qualified, but didn't feel like going through the process of filling out a form, sending in fin aid info, and essentially having to sign up through the mail instead of online.
But hell, I did well, so I don't really care now.
There is but it varies by school. At my school I had to have a certain number of earned credit hours to qualify. I was six hours short. Yet, had I waited until next semester it would have been too late. So, a financially indigent student has to make decisions about their future based on economic guidelines beyond their control. It sucks. If I had not had another route to go I would have lost the momentum of being in school while applying -- which helps. And I, theoretically, would have had a year after graduation to languish. That sucks. And its the arbitrariness of the rules. It's just like the cost of apps -- designed to keep the student aid office from getting too many requests. The institution's needs are put before the students'; although the institution supposedly exists FOR the students.
And now I'm angry, again! GAH! Someone better let me in a program so I can get to my work or I'm gonna blow smoke out my ears.
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I'm pretty conflicted about it. Having done all of my undergrad at an institution that doesn't provide grades (pass/fail grading supplemented by narrative evaluations of course work) I don't have any other way in which I can be quantitatively measured against other students. There's no GPA for them to look at and say, oh she did well/poorly. Only my GRE to prove that I could have been competitive at a large grade-issuing institution.
That said, taking the GRE was miserable, and I'm not convinced it really measures more than the ability to learn a lot of vocabulary, and how to take the test. Paying for it was even worse, and if I hadn't had my student loans, this entire process would have been inaccessible to me.
me, too
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It's like you read my mind! I was just thinking to myself today...hmm there has to be an article out there somewhere about how adcomm's approach applications, some insider tips or something... maybe I will post on the forum and see if anyone has seen anything like that.... and there here it was! creepy, haha, but thank you!
Ooh! Ooh! Ooh! Next time think "I wonder if coyabean has gotten her two impressive fully funded offers yet?"
If you guys think SOPs are bad...
in Statement of Purpose, Personal History, Diversity
Posted · Edited by coyabean
Kitty pidgin for the win! lol